Although I’m sure the population isn’t as big as some of the ones on this list, I always find the South Sioux City, NE, Sioux City, IA, and North Sioux City, SD area an interesting example of this. You usually don’t find three states with the same city name that share a border like this
@@ARandomDonut I do. I lived in Sioux Falls for 4 years while attending Augustana, & I would drive the 150 miles back home to Fremont (NE) about once a month; of course, I went through Sioux City on that drive. Since this was before they replaced the HORRENDOUS exit from Highway 77 to Interstate 29, I would take Highway 20 from 77 to I-29. The stretch of I-29 before getting into Sioux City proper was BREATHTAKING, with the Missouri River on the west side of I-29 & the trees on the east side, ESPECIALLY in the fall! I LOVED that part of the drive.
Keep up the diversity of content, from these classic Geogrpahy King ones to mind-expanding videos on The Gambia and Dakar, to the SF street walk; it is all high quality. Glad to here about the sponsorship. You are doing the right things to make all us follwers very satisfied.
Thanks! I enjoy covering a wide range of topics since there's just so much out there. I need more hands and time to cover the list of topics I'll probably never get to.
I can’t believe that you left out the Research Triangle - Raleigh, Durham and Chapel Hill!!! Even if you had discussed it before, you should have at least mentioned it!
Some might consider we have 4 main cities with the fourth being Cary. Cary now has a much bigger population than Chapel Hill and is also equally dense (meaning the high population is not just because it has more land area). Nonetheless, Chapel Hill is still more appropriate as the third anchor due to the University and it feeling more like a city, albeit a small one.
@@AtulKedia A big part of Cary's growth was their takeover of areas that were Raleigh. I remember the "Stop Cary" movement when I was growing up because Cary was absorbing so much and people hated the changes that came with it.
It's definitely an obvious omission, but I think it's probably the most well-known of these tri-cities metros. I edited out a line where I stated something like "the piedmont triad is just down the interstate from the more well-known Triangle that I won't go into detail about here". But I always need to leave some room for a part 2.
Just so you know, Bristol Motor Speedway was a temporary dirt track only a few times. It's a half mile paved oval that has a couple Nascar weekends every year.
I really think you overlooked a big one: Allentown-Bethlehem-Easton, the 3rd most populous MSA in Pennsylvania, with about 860,000 people and 5% growth over the last 10 years. It’s the home of Muhlenberg College, Lafayette College and Lehigh University, Crayola Crayons, Martin Guitar, Mack Trucks (manufacturing headquarters), Air Products, Lutron, Victaulic, and two huge healthcare systems: Lehigh Valley Hospital Network and St Luke’s University Healthcare Network.
I grew up in Durham NC and it was already called the "Triangle Area" at that time due to the creation of the Research Triangle Park. It's truly become a single metropolis over the past generation. I'm sad you left us out.
I figured he would leave out the Triad, not us! It really is merging together. Crazy the amount of development that's been happening the last 10 years.
The Census considers the Triangle as 3 different metros: Raleigh-Cary, Durham-Chapel Hill, and Henderson. Blame the census for not combining Raleigh-Durham-Chapel Hill into a single metro
I live in the Quad cities (Illinois side) and the stagnated population definitely shows its impact greatly. Thanks for including it on this list though!😃
A proud Rock Islander would point out that the worst flooding only happens on the other side of the river, as *some* cities have properly invested in flood walls, and *some* cities have still not done so..
I grew up in Bristol TN and am a ETSU Geography grad. Long time fan on your channel, and nice to see you led off the vid with Tri Cities, TN. As a kid with a keen interest in Geography, I always found it curious that there were many businesses in Elizabethton that chose the name "Quad Cities.." this and that. It's the Tri Cities! Of course you could excuse establishments in Bristol that went by "Twin Cities ...". But it seems like little Elizabethton had a chip on its shoulder, since Abingdon or Jonesborough certainly have their own sense of place and would never stoop to such hubris. Thanks for all the interesting videos!
I love your diligence in being accurate, entertaining and informative. It’s easy to tell that you do your research and pay attention to small details. Great episode!
Love.yoir videos. Here's another voice for Lehigh Valley: Allentown, Bethlehem, Easton PA. Growing area, diverse economy, great healthcare, good higher ed, only 25 mins to Appalachian Trail and lots of good.places to hike and bike. Plus the adaptive reuse of Bethlehem Steel blast furnaces into an awesome arts venue. Been here 34 yrs and it keeps getting better every year.
And for the sexiest reason ever- I lost the source file for the old animation and sound and just redid something similar. I like the more ominous tone of the new one.
How are the Research Triangle (Raleigh, Durham, Chapel Hill) and South Florida (Miami, Ft Lauderdale, West Palm Beach) left out of this video? I can also make an argument for Tampa Bay (Tampa, St. Pete, and Clearwater). Then there's the Bay Area of California with San Francisco, Oakland, and San Jose. Are they just too big? Maybe these show up in part 2?
The South Florida cities are far enough away from each other that they don’t really count as tri-cities. You could argue the same for SF/Oakland, San Jose and the North Bay areas (Santa Rosa/Napa)
Correction: Chesapeake is home to Dollar Tree, not Dollar General. The description of neighboring Virginia Beach as one big suburb is pretty accurate. That said, Virginia Beach is very frequently listed at the top or right near the top of various “best places” lists in the US. Like other cities in the region, there is strong military presence… Oceana Naval Air Station, Dam Neck Annex, Joint Base Little Creek, Fort Story, Camp Pendleton, Va.
This video definitely needs a part 2. I'm going to shout out my area, the Michiana area. South Bend, Elkhart, Mishawaka, and Goshen in Indiana, with Niles in Michigan.
Being a shopping mall nerd I visit the TriCities/GLBR every October and I love how the make up of how some of the cities are. Some of my favorite area to drive in is going from Midland Mall to Bay City Town Center. Sometimes I visit the abandoned mall in nearby Essexville.
Just a note: the area you featured on the Virginia coast is commonly described as the '7 cities'. The two you did not mention being Portsmouth and Suffolk. The number of colleges and universities in the area is staggering. There's also Smithfield Packing.
So happy to see my hometown on here! (Albany-Schenectady-Troy). You did a wonderful job showcasing my home! One other thing to mention, is Troy has come back tremendously and is home to many boutique shops, restaurants, and breweries. It used to be very rough, but now is inarguably the most vibrant city of the three (and I say this as someone who grew up halfway between Schenectady and Albany).
That explains it…I remember driving through there and seeing guys in new Mercedes and flashy new houses in the middle of nowhere (seriously this area is very isolated.) Big $ in decades long nuclear cleanup I’d guess
Seattle Tacoma is growing so rapidly that in my lifetime it’s gone from Seattle-Tacoma to Seattle-Bellevue-Tacoma-Everett and the only thing stopping metropolitan growth from reaching as far south as Olympia and basically connecting the Seattle and Portland regions is the fact that the biggest military base in the country cuts the area off.
Hampton Roads actually has a 6th city not mentioned here - Portsmouth, a small but historic old downtown and home of several large shipyards and shipping facilities. Technically there is also a 7th (Suffolk) but that one is mostly rural. 6 or 7 is maybe a record?
Seven cities is a nickname that is used. I've always understood it to be the seven you listed, but online lists seem to vary a bit. Virginia's independent cities also makes the comparison a bit strange. As you mentioned, Suffolk is mostly rural, but it also cracks the top 10 for city population in Virginia.
They call Hampton Roads the Seven Cities to the exclusion of Williamsburg and Poquoson. Williamsburg probably deserves some more love, but I can understand forgetting about Poquoson. 😂
Something really interesting about the Quad Cities: While the whole Illinois side is losing population and Davenport is relatively stagnant in population, Bettendorf is exploding in development and population and may be the largest of the quad cities in the future? Want to know why? An enormous sports complex/arcade called the bettplex. Because of the popularity of this sports complex and its central location in the country, right off of I-80, dozens of new businesses, hotels, and even a top golf like facility called iron tee has popped up next to the bettplex. Bettendorf neighborhoods are being built at lightning speed and it is a really nice, cheap area.
Kyle: just a suggestion for videos like this. When the area maps are displayed would you please highlight the cities (or location, as applicable) mentioned? On some of the maps it was a challenge for the viewer to find all of the defining cities in real time ...
Interesting subject, and some very nice places to live. Hope you do more - and perhaps, where helpful, add more history as to the origins of the cities, which explains decisions people made to create these cities. Thanks again.
As someone who lives in Richland, there’s not much reason to visit the Tri. I’m not surprised you haven’t been. It’s fine, there are a few nice places if you’re here, downtown Kennewick is sort of nice, but if you’re in the area, Walla Walla is much more interesting and fun, with much more history and culture and tourism. They could do something with the outdoor activities but they choose not to because all the old fogeys are terrified that if they have anything fun then people will move here. But if you make it out here, I look forward to your geography trivia!
Kennewick resident here. Considering the huge population growth in the Tri-Cities over the last 15 years, the old fogeys clearly are not having much success discouraging people from moving here. My wife and I retired here from the Seattle burbs in 2009 and have no regrets whatsoever.
Hampton Roads also referred to as the 7 cities is actually a 7 city metro not a tri-city metro consisting of Newport News(180k), Hampton(138k), Portsmouth(97k), VA Beach(455k), Norfolk(232k), Chesapeake(252k), and Suffolk(98k). Williamsburg is an outskirt suburb of Newport News
I was just in Kingsport, TN this weekend to visit the nearby Natural Tunnel State Park, and heard the term tri-city thrown around, and was curious what that was about. Great video!
The Triangle: Raleigh, Durham, Chapel Hill. Home of RTP(Research Triangle Park.) Sure Raleigh-Durham dominates as a pairing, but they are also part of a Triangle. Interested in your reasons for omitting them. 🤔
I wanted to focus on some of the smaller and lesser-known tri-cities. The Triangle is probably the most well-known of them all, and I also need to leave a little room for a part 2, since there were a lot more than I was able to discuss in one video.
Great job on the video, Kyle. You are an amazing entertainer here on TH-cam. My favorite video from you is the 25 most scenic states in the US. Can you do me a favor if you want. Can you make a top 10 or top 25 least attractive states in terms of natural beauty? I know that our country is beautiful but some states have underwhelming landscapes.
I'll take a crack at it: North Dakota, Nebraska, Kansas, Illinois, Delaware, Alabama, Mississippi, Oklahoma, Indiana and Iowa. I live in Omaha and love it but we are not a big tourist draw for our natural beauty. We do have great people!
Kyle, back in my running days, I probably participated around a dozen times in the BIX7 race--7 miles of crazy big hills, and named after hometown boy, and renowned jazz trumpeter Bix Beiderbeck of the Dorsey days of jazz, and who died way too young. This has grown to around 20,000 participants from around the world, and every year, it's expected that you'll see world class runners, including Olympic ones. Long ago, marathoners Bill Rodgers and Joan Benoit-Samuelson, were invited years ago, and loved it so much, they've come on their own nickel annually, to the point that there's been a statue of them downtown for years.
I was somewhat surprised that you didn't include the Triangle Area in NC...but then I was pleasantly surprised to see a lot of others commenting similar sentiments.
As a Kennewickian I can confirm that there isn’t much to see in Tri-Cities WA. Though the Hanford tours or the REACH museum are nice if you enjoy science and along the Columbia River has some nice parks.
I am so glad you brought up Northwest Arkansas. I used to live there for three years until I recently moved to Toronto this May. I used to work for Walmart Corporate in Bentonville and wanted to settle there but couldn't due to US immigration complications. Really miss the NWA!
Florida has a few that weren’t considered at all. Tampa Bay Tampa-St.Pete-Clearwater-Bradenton South Florida Miami-Ft.Lauderdale-West Palm Central Florida Orlando-Kissimmee-Lakeland SWFL Sarasota-Ft.Myers-Naples Florida is literally one big Megalopolis. You missed the opportunity to mention any of these Tri city areas.
What about Phoenix Arizona? You have the following: Phoenix Scottsdale Tempe Mesa The original 4 cities Add to it: Chandler Gilbert Glendale Peoria Plus many smaller towns and cities. The economy is pretty diverse...though affordability may be an issue. Also this is Maricopa County, Pinal County, and Yavapai County! This is one of the fastest growing areas of the USA as far as population.
A lot of us probably thought western North Carolina would be safe from natural disasters, especially hurricanes. I did anyway. I didn't take into account the rivers that funnel water into the area. It's awful to see what has been done to such a beautiful area. And awesome Asheville NC, one of my favorite places, has a lot of recovering to do. Thanks Kyle. Another great video.
Great stuff, love learning about parts of the country I don't typically hear about. For Part 2, I would recommend the Fox Cities of Northeastern Wisconsin - always been curious about that area!
You could discuss the Huntington, WV/Ashland, KY/Ironton, OH "Tri-State" metro area. It's been losing population, but it has lots of promise, if only the local governments could get over some ego issues.
I have a separate list for a video of tri-city areas that are also tri-state and Huntington "Kenova" is on it. I should also have a WV-specific video coming soon.
I need to explore NW Arkansas. I've been hearing good things about it. I've been to some of these areas. Thanks for the video. Great information as usual.
Lovely topic (although I think none are as special as the Twin Cities :)) Also, in this video and others, I'm starting to get kinda skeptical when you say so many cities have "diverse economies" or "a good job market". It's probably a tough question to answer with complete accuracy, but I just wonder given that so many cities you highlight on your channel also look small, quaint, and "visually" unlike what most major top 25/top 50 metro areas look like.
I was hoping you'd mention my hometown or Fayetteville. I was born here, and have lived here most my life. I've been to a lot of places, and it's one of the best. It sure has grown a lot in my lifetime.
Born and raised in Midland, MI. Saginaw used to be twice the size and has buildings like a bigger place. Bay City was also a nice percentage higher than what it is now. Both have higher crime and poverty. Midland continues to grow because it is safer and has better schools. Also it is a highly rated area for businesses with a couple fortune five hundred companies.
I lived for about six years in one of the smaller tri-city metro areas of the country: Olympia, Lacey, Tumwater WA, centered around the state capital of Olympia.
As for the Quad Cities... At one time, there were FOUR major farm implement companies (Case, IH, DEERE,CAT). Out of those only Deere remains. There are also quite a few smaller towns nearby.
I live in Oceanside, California. We have a tri-city with the cities of Vista and Carlsbad. There is a hospital called "Tri-City Hospital" in Oceanside and is within a few minutes of the other 2.
I thought this video was going to be state border cities for some reason and now I think you should totally do a video on that! Kansas City being a prime example but I would exclude places like Chicago where the Indiana portion is technically a part of it but they seem to have their own thing going on whereas NYC would be included because NJ is very integral to the city. Other example are Cincinnati, Portland OR, El Paso, KC, STL, Omaha, Philly. Places I would not include are Providence, Augusta GA, Chattanooga, Spokane
I was born and raised in the piedmont Triad area of NC, but live in metro Dallas now. The triad is made up of three cities a hop skip and a jump from each other, but they are definitely separate cities that do their own thing. Especially Greensboro and Winston-Salem.
A news report in March stated that according to Census Bureau statistics, the Spartanburg metro area grew by 3 % , 10, 640 residents in 2022-2023, making it one of the fastest growing areas in the US. Several projects are underway in the downtown area including a new baseball stadium, the largest investment in the city’s history.
We're from the Akron-Canton Ohio area, which though we refer to it as one area, is divided into two separate MSAs when not included with Cleveland. In spite of that, it functions relatively as one region slightly separate of Cleveland with populations in order of Akron, Canton, Cuy Falls, and Massillon all having traditional downtowns.
Hampton roads resident here . Norfolk is our urban fabric but there are some new-comers to mixed use development. In chesapeake , dollar tree actually has started building a downtown development , in virginia beach we have town center which has been expanding to our old mall that is slated to have mixed used development. And in Newport news there's also city center oyester point!
Pure curiosity: are there any consistent differences between more "saturated" metros like the Quad Cities, where the "urban" landscape fills the space between the city centers, and metros like the Great Lakes Bay region, where there's solid rural farmland or forest between the city centers? I'm too lazy to look into it. :) Awesome new graphic logo thing too!
Im from the quad cities, it makes it feel like 1 big city. Well 2 really cause we hate crossing the river here so its kind of Iowa side vs Illinois side. ill drive 5 miles uptown rather than go a mile across the river to get the same thing lmao. Plus Illinois side is much more expensive on gas, smokes, alcohol, pretty much everything so theres not much reason to go over there lol.
@@FlawedOffroad I used to live near Iowa City, and I've been to the Quad Cities a few times. Definitely just stayed on the Iowa side unless I was heading to Chicago or beyond. I'm from the Upper Midwest, so the idea of paying to drive on boring freeways was always so offensive. At least Iowa has the decency not to charge you even more just to pass through.
@@jamesbungert3155 its mostly i-88 that has a toll, 74 and 80 don't. Well I think there is 1 toll on 80 in Chicago, cant recall if it was on the Indiana side. I just made that drive a few weeks ago. 88 is worth the tolls from here if you have to go anywhere on the north half of chicagoland
I would consider the California high desert cities of Victorville-Hesperia-Apple Valley to be tri-cities since they're all relatively the same size--give and take 100,000 each. My hometown of Barstow is too small & too far away to be part of that mix. However, when I was growing up in the 70s & 80s, Barstow was larger than any city in the Victor Valley
Fun fact. One of the nicknames for Hampton Roads is the seven cities, because there are 7 cities in the metro area. The area has an interesting history and alot of the city boundaries were shaped by segregation. In the 60s, there was this thing called "white flight" where many white people left the city because they didn't like the idea of integration in schools. They moved out into small towns in the suburbs and exurbs, and many of these towns took advantage of Virginia's weird independent city thing and annexed the surrounding county to call themselves a city, essentially landlocking the central city of Norfolk Virginia. Instead of placing their city hall in a Downtown area, Virginia Beach and Chesapeake have campuses at the edge of the suburbs. Because of things like this, there's alot of bickering and redundancy that goes on between the cities, and it holds the region back. Especially between Norfolk and Virginia Beach.
I was born a geography nerd and I used to read the atlas on family road trips to pass the time. And I was completely convinced when I was 5 years old that Chesapeake, VA was the biggest city in the world, just because Rand McNally used such a large font & its city limits took up so much map space. Little did I know that a bunch of medium sized cities could just line up side by side like that. Totally blew my mind.
I'm also a lifelong geography nerd. Learning that a Mercator Projection map of the world was wildly inaccurate must have given you a similar shock. (Unless you had a globe, of course.)😄
I'm surprised the Lehigh Valley (Allentown/Bethlehem/Easton/Phillipsburg) metro area wasn't mentioned. It's the third largest metro in Pennsylvania, only behind Philadelphia and Pittsburgh. It used to be known as a big steel area, but currently, there's a lot of medical, education, warehouse/logistics, blue collar, tourism, and chemical industries there, plus it's just over an hour from NYC, Philadelphia, and Scranton, making it convenient for people wanting to go to any of those.
Bristol Motor Speedway is a 0.533 miles oval short track in Bristol, Tennessee. The track has held a variety of events since its opening in 1961, including NASCAR races, NCAA FBS college football games, and sprint car races. Wikipedia Address: 151 Speedway Blvd, Bristol, TN 37620 Length: 0.533 miles (0.858 km) Surface: Concrete Banking: Turns: 24-28°, 5-9° Frontstretch, 4-8° Backstretch
Although I’m sure the population isn’t as big as some of the ones on this list, I always find the South Sioux City, NE, Sioux City, IA, and North Sioux City, SD area an interesting example of this. You usually don’t find three states with the same city name that share a border like this
that jumble is worth an episode by itself!
We don't talk about sewer city
-Someone from Sioux Falls
@@ARandomDonutSouth dakotans all understand, Sioux Falls clears Sewer city any day
love SD it is a great state!
@@ARandomDonut
I do. I lived in Sioux Falls for 4 years while attending Augustana, & I would drive the 150 miles back home to Fremont (NE) about once a month; of course, I went through Sioux City on that drive. Since this was before they replaced the HORRENDOUS exit from Highway 77 to Interstate 29, I would take Highway 20 from 77 to I-29. The stretch of I-29 before getting into Sioux City proper was BREATHTAKING, with the Missouri River on the west side of I-29 & the trees on the east side, ESPECIALLY in the fall! I LOVED that part of the drive.
Keep up the diversity of content, from these classic Geogrpahy King ones to mind-expanding videos on The Gambia and Dakar, to the SF street walk; it is all high quality. Glad to here about the sponsorship. You are doing the right things to make all us follwers very satisfied.
Thanks! I enjoy covering a wide range of topics since there's just so much out there. I need more hands and time to cover the list of topics I'll probably never get to.
I can’t believe that you left out the Research Triangle - Raleigh, Durham and Chapel Hill!!! Even if you had discussed it before, you should have at least mentioned it!
Some might consider we have 4 main cities with the fourth being Cary. Cary now has a much bigger population than Chapel Hill and is also equally dense (meaning the high population is not just because it has more land area). Nonetheless, Chapel Hill is still more appropriate as the third anchor due to the University and it feeling more like a city, albeit a small one.
@@AtulKedia A big part of Cary's growth was their takeover of areas that were Raleigh. I remember the "Stop Cary" movement when I was growing up because Cary was absorbing so much and people hated the changes that came with it.
I know it's the Triangle. I went to high school in the area. But honestly it's really Raleigh/Durham.
It’s two MSAs that form one CMSA, just like the Rio Grande Valley. It was an oversight not to mention it.
It's definitely an obvious omission, but I think it's probably the most well-known of these tri-cities metros. I edited out a line where I stated something like "the piedmont triad is just down the interstate from the more well-known Triangle that I won't go into detail about here". But I always need to leave some room for a part 2.
Just so you know, Bristol Motor Speedway was a temporary dirt track only a few times. It's a half mile paved oval that has a couple Nascar weekends every year.
That’s a snazzy new intro
I really think you overlooked a big one: Allentown-Bethlehem-Easton, the 3rd most populous MSA in Pennsylvania, with about 860,000 people and 5% growth over the last 10 years. It’s the home of Muhlenberg College, Lafayette College and Lehigh University, Crayola Crayons, Martin Guitar, Mack Trucks (manufacturing headquarters), Air Products, Lutron, Victaulic, and two huge healthcare systems: Lehigh Valley Hospital Network and St Luke’s University Healthcare Network.
You forgot Just Born candies (Peeps) and the worlds largest free music festifal, Musikfest
I remember Bethlehem Steel, too.
I live here in the Lehigh Valley. I was going to mention it here until I saw your comment.
@@Lallapalalable Yikes! Thanks for correcting the oversight.
Massive miss on his part
The Headquarters in Chesapeake is Dollar Tree, not Dollar General. DG’s headquarters is in Goodlettsville, TN in the Nashville metro area.
(I always liked the Dollar Tree better, anyway)!
Haha, I came here to say this.
Don't you mean Dollar and a Quarter Tree?
Thanks for the correction.
@@mousetreehouse6833 I used to like the Dollar Tree, back when everything was one dollar or less, but now the Dollar Tree is jacking up prices.
I grew up in Durham NC and it was already called the "Triangle Area" at that time due to the creation of the Research Triangle Park. It's truly become a single metropolis over the past generation. I'm sad you left us out.
Yes, mentioning the triad without the triangle was a bit odd.
I figured he would leave out the Triad, not us! It really is merging together. Crazy the amount of development that's been happening the last 10 years.
Yes, the Triangle is a big omission, Kyle! Still, I'm glad that you covered my hometown (Johnson City) right off the bat.
The Census considers the Triangle as 3 different metros: Raleigh-Cary, Durham-Chapel Hill, and Henderson. Blame the census for not combining Raleigh-Durham-Chapel Hill into a single metro
@@jmlinden7 I don't think he's going by the Census designations though because that would also split up the Triad, Greenville-Spartanburg, and others.
I live in the Quad cities (Illinois side) and the stagnated population definitely shows its impact greatly. Thanks for including it on this list though!😃
A proud Rock Islander would point out that the worst flooding only happens on the other side of the river, as *some* cities have properly invested in flood walls, and *some* cities have still not done so..
Great job using all the drone footage! Really added to the video instead of just pictures. Keep up the great work King!
I grew up in Bristol TN and am a ETSU Geography grad. Long time fan on your channel, and nice to see you led off the vid with Tri Cities, TN. As a kid with a keen interest in Geography, I always found it curious that there were many businesses in Elizabethton that chose the name "Quad Cities.." this and that. It's the Tri Cities! Of course you could excuse establishments in Bristol that went by "Twin Cities ...". But it seems like little Elizabethton had a chip on its shoulder, since Abingdon or Jonesborough certainly have their own sense of place and would never stoop to such hubris. Thanks for all the interesting videos!
Don't forget Piney Flats! 😂
@@rexb9661 My great aunt was from there. It is the true garden spot of the Tri Cities.
I love your diligence in being accurate, entertaining and informative. It’s easy to tell that you do your research and pay attention to small details. Great episode!
The NWA is fantastic. I live north of it in Missouri, but I travel there a lot and it's very enticing.
Hi neighbor. I live in Fayetteville. My mom is from Lamar, MO
18:39
That's the Arsenal!
Greenville Sc is such a beautiful small city. The natural benefit of having a waterfall right downtown is a bonus.
Love.yoir videos. Here's another voice for Lehigh Valley: Allentown, Bethlehem, Easton PA. Growing area, diverse economy, great healthcare, good higher ed, only 25 mins to Appalachian Trail and lots of good.places to hike and bike. Plus the adaptive reuse of Bethlehem Steel blast furnaces into an awesome arts venue. Been here 34 yrs and it keeps getting better every year.
The old intro is a classic, but holy is this new one amazing. I love it a lot!
Wasn't expecting the 3d graphic to open the video! Looks good!
Uh oh. The opening "whoosh" has been changed! Still great content, Kyle!
And for the sexiest reason ever- I lost the source file for the old animation and sound and just redid something similar. I like the more ominous tone of the new one.
How are the Research Triangle (Raleigh, Durham, Chapel Hill) and South Florida (Miami, Ft Lauderdale, West Palm Beach) left out of this video? I can also make an argument for Tampa Bay (Tampa, St. Pete, and Clearwater). Then there's the Bay Area of California with San Francisco, Oakland, and San Jose. Are they just too big? Maybe these show up in part 2?
You could even add the Vallejo, Napa, and Santa Rosa metros to the bay depending how you look at it.
Generally, when you think of Raleigh-Durham Isn’t it a Twin City scenario?
@@pjschmid2251 You might think that if you don't live here, but it's the Triangle to locals.
The South Florida cities are far enough away from each other that they don’t really count as tri-cities. You could argue the same for SF/Oakland, San Jose and the North Bay areas (Santa Rosa/Napa)
The Tampa Bay metro is the 17th largest in the us, I thought I would be included in the vid
Correction: Chesapeake is home to Dollar Tree, not Dollar General. The description of neighboring Virginia Beach as one big suburb is pretty accurate. That said, Virginia Beach is very frequently listed at the top or right near the top of various “best places” lists in the US. Like other cities in the region, there is strong military presence… Oceana Naval Air Station, Dam Neck Annex, Joint Base Little Creek, Fort Story, Camp Pendleton, Va.
This video definitely needs a part 2. I'm going to shout out my area, the Michiana area. South Bend, Elkhart, Mishawaka, and Goshen in Indiana, with Niles in Michigan.
Being a shopping mall nerd I visit the TriCities/GLBR every October and I love how the make up of how some of the cities are. Some of my favorite area to drive in is going from Midland Mall to Bay City Town Center. Sometimes I visit the abandoned mall in nearby Essexville.
Just a note: the area you featured on the Virginia coast is commonly described as the '7 cities'. The two you did not mention being Portsmouth and Suffolk. The number of colleges and universities in the area is staggering. There's also Smithfield Packing.
So happy to see my hometown on here! (Albany-Schenectady-Troy). You did a wonderful job showcasing my home! One other thing to mention, is Troy has come back tremendously and is home to many boutique shops, restaurants, and breweries. It used to be very rough, but now is inarguably the most vibrant city of the three (and I say this as someone who grew up halfway between Schenectady and Albany).
Utica lol
When I saw the title of the video I was hoping you would do a segment on Tri-Cities Tennessee and you did not disappoint! Great analysis.
Left off Tampa Saint Pete Clearwater
Yeah those are actually closely connected unlike the first one he mentioned in this list
Clear what?
Too small to count
@@clsanchez77 wha????
Fr i live in the area and thought it'd be included
Wow, so cool that you did Albany! Thank you!
What about the Lehigh Valley (Allentown/Bethlehem/Easton)? Even the airport is called ABE.
Three-headed monster when referring to the WA. Tri-cities is kinda funny.
Three-headed monster because of all the nuclear waste :P
@@lilshaolinboy Only the most irradiated people in the Contiguous US
That explains it…I remember driving through there and seeing guys in new Mercedes and flashy new houses in the middle of nowhere (seriously this area is very isolated.) Big $ in decades long nuclear cleanup I’d guess
Seattle Tacoma is growing so rapidly that in my lifetime it’s gone from Seattle-Tacoma to Seattle-Bellevue-Tacoma-Everett and the only thing stopping metropolitan growth from reaching as far south as Olympia and basically connecting the Seattle and Portland regions is the fact that the biggest military base in the country cuts the area off.
Hampton Roads actually has a 6th city not mentioned here - Portsmouth, a small but historic old downtown and home of several large shipyards and shipping facilities. Technically there is also a 7th (Suffolk) but that one is mostly rural. 6 or 7 is maybe a record?
Seven cities is a nickname that is used. I've always understood it to be the seven you listed, but online lists seem to vary a bit. Virginia's independent cities also makes the comparison a bit strange. As you mentioned, Suffolk is mostly rural, but it also cracks the top 10 for city population in Virginia.
@@evilschectermusic1204 i forget about Suffolk all the time.🤣🤣 I only remembered it when Id drive home to alabama
Hampton Roads is comprised of 7 cities and carries that "7 Cities" moniker.
They call Hampton Roads the Seven Cities to the exclusion of Williamsburg and Poquoson. Williamsburg probably deserves some more love, but I can understand forgetting about Poquoson. 😂
Great new intro!
Something really interesting about the Quad Cities: While the whole Illinois side is losing population and Davenport is relatively stagnant in population, Bettendorf is exploding in development and population and may be the largest of the quad cities in the future? Want to know why? An enormous sports complex/arcade called the bettplex. Because of the popularity of this sports complex and its central location in the country, right off of I-80, dozens of new businesses, hotels, and even a top golf like facility called iron tee has popped up next to the bettplex. Bettendorf neighborhoods are being built at lightning speed and it is a really nice, cheap area.
My wife and I retired from the Seattle burbs to Kennewick in 2009. We've found it to be a good place to live. No regrets.
Kyle: just a suggestion for videos like this. When the area maps are displayed would you please highlight the cities (or location, as applicable) mentioned? On some of the maps it was a challenge for the viewer to find all of the defining cities in real time ...
Interesting subject, and some very nice places to live. Hope you do more - and perhaps, where helpful, add more history as to the origins of the cities, which explains decisions people made to create these cities. Thanks again.
As someone who lives in Richland, there’s not much reason to visit the Tri. I’m not surprised you haven’t been. It’s fine, there are a few nice places if you’re here, downtown Kennewick is sort of nice, but if you’re in the area, Walla Walla is much more interesting and fun, with much more history and culture and tourism. They could do something with the outdoor activities but they choose not to because all the old fogeys are terrified that if they have anything fun then people will move here. But if you make it out here, I look forward to your geography trivia!
I agree that Walla Walla is much more interesting
Kennewick resident here. Considering the huge population growth in the Tri-Cities over the last 15 years, the old fogeys clearly are not having much success discouraging people from moving here. My wife and I retired here from the Seattle burbs in 2009 and have no regrets whatsoever.
I live in Bay City and I truly did not expect you to include us. 🤣🤣
Love that map behind Kyle with US waterways highlighted, super neat!
Hampton Roads also referred to as the 7 cities is actually a 7 city metro not a tri-city metro consisting of Newport News(180k), Hampton(138k), Portsmouth(97k), VA Beach(455k), Norfolk(232k), Chesapeake(252k), and Suffolk(98k). Williamsburg is an outskirt suburb of Newport News
I was just in Kingsport, TN this weekend to visit the nearby Natural Tunnel State Park, and heard the term tri-city thrown around, and was curious what that was about. Great video!
Saginaw-Bay City-Midland, MI (Tri-Cities) is a around 400k
Very interesting and informative. Thanks as always.
The Triangle: Raleigh, Durham, Chapel Hill. Home of RTP(Research Triangle Park.) Sure Raleigh-Durham dominates as a pairing, but they are also part of a Triangle. Interested in your reasons for omitting them. 🤔
I wanted to focus on some of the smaller and lesser-known tri-cities. The Triangle is probably the most well-known of them all, and I also need to leave a little room for a part 2, since there were a lot more than I was able to discuss in one video.
Nice update to the opening clip and background!
The Rock Island Arsenal is the largest small arms manufacturer in the world
Great job on the video, Kyle. You are an amazing entertainer here on TH-cam.
My favorite video from you is the 25 most scenic states in the US.
Can you do me a favor if you want. Can you make a top 10 or top 25 least attractive states in terms of natural beauty?
I know that our country is beautiful but some states have underwhelming landscapes.
I'll take a crack at it: North Dakota, Nebraska, Kansas, Illinois, Delaware, Alabama, Mississippi, Oklahoma, Indiana and Iowa. I live in Omaha and love it but we are not a big tourist draw for our natural beauty. We do have great people!
Kyle, back in my running days, I probably participated around a dozen times in the BIX7 race--7 miles of crazy big hills, and named after hometown boy, and renowned jazz trumpeter Bix Beiderbeck of the Dorsey days of jazz, and who died way too young. This has grown to around 20,000 participants from around the world, and every year, it's expected that you'll see world class runners, including Olympic ones. Long ago, marathoners Bill Rodgers and Joan Benoit-Samuelson, were invited years ago, and loved it so much, they've come on their own nickel annually, to the point that there's been a statue of them downtown for years.
Bay City MI is pretty cool. The riverfront is super nice in my experience.
I was somewhat surprised that you didn't include the Triangle Area in NC...but then I was pleasantly surprised to see a lot of others commenting similar sentiments.
Two different metro areas.
Rio Grande Valley native here. Wanted to add that we boast the best tacos in the state as well. I’ll die on this hill
As a Houstonian, I believe you (never been though)
Fayetteville resident here! Love NWA!
Shout out Michigan tri cities!!! Not often a TH-camr mentions my hometown by name.
As a Kennewickian I can confirm that there isn’t much to see in Tri-Cities WA. Though the Hanford tours or the REACH museum are nice if you enjoy science and along the Columbia River has some nice parks.
I am so glad you brought up Northwest Arkansas. I used to live there for three years until I recently moved to Toronto this May. I used to work for Walmart Corporate in Bentonville and wanted to settle there but couldn't due to US immigration complications. Really miss the NWA!
Salt Lake is another one. Ogden and Provo metros touch it on either side. all three are considered their own metro
Florida has a few that weren’t considered at all.
Tampa Bay
Tampa-St.Pete-Clearwater-Bradenton
South Florida
Miami-Ft.Lauderdale-West Palm
Central Florida
Orlando-Kissimmee-Lakeland
SWFL
Sarasota-Ft.Myers-Naples
Florida is literally one big Megalopolis. You missed the opportunity to mention any of these Tri city areas.
What about Phoenix Arizona? You have the following:
Phoenix
Scottsdale
Tempe
Mesa
The original 4 cities
Add to it:
Chandler
Gilbert
Glendale
Peoria
Plus many smaller towns and cities. The economy is pretty diverse...though affordability may be an issue.
Also this is Maricopa County, Pinal County, and Yavapai County! This is one of the fastest growing areas of the USA as far as population.
A lot of us probably thought western North Carolina would be safe from natural disasters, especially hurricanes. I did anyway. I didn't take into account the rivers that funnel water into the area. It's awful to see what has been done to such a beautiful area. And awesome Asheville NC, one of my favorite places, has a lot of recovering to do.
Thanks Kyle. Another great video.
I live in Bristol in the UK and I can assure you the one in TN/VA is probably better.
Nope.
I just did a Google search, and it looks like you guys are tops!
Hold your heads up, U.K!
👍👍👍
Your Bristol is Absolutely Beautiful!
💐 💐 💐
Nah, you’ve got Banksy.
Any town that’s the home of Sarah Records is just fine by me
Nah, I live about 25 minutes from Bristol, Va, and while it’s not a bad town, it’s definitely seen better days.
Car centric suburbia
Students at SVSU used to call, Saginaw "Sag-i-nasty" the new Detroit, its a shame what happened to our cities when the auto companies left
Great stuff, love learning about parts of the country I don't typically hear about. For Part 2, I would recommend the Fox Cities of Northeastern Wisconsin - always been curious about that area!
I was happy when I saw JC, KPT, and Bristol first on your list. I probably won't ever leave, I was born and raised here!
Even San Francisco is a tri-city metro, with San Jose its largest city in population.
You could discuss the Huntington, WV/Ashland, KY/Ironton, OH "Tri-State" metro area. It's been losing population, but it has lots of promise, if only the local governments could get over some ego issues.
I have a separate list for a video of tri-city areas that are also tri-state and Huntington "Kenova" is on it. I should also have a WV-specific video coming soon.
12:04 - DollarTree is at Chesapeake, Virginia.
Dollar General is in Tennessee, between Nashville and Knoxville.
I need to explore NW Arkansas. I've been hearing good things about it. I've been to some of these areas. Thanks for the video. Great information as usual.
Lovely topic (although I think none are as special as the Twin Cities :)) Also, in this video and others, I'm starting to get kinda skeptical when you say so many cities have "diverse economies" or "a good job market". It's probably a tough question to answer with complete accuracy, but I just wonder given that so many cities you highlight on your channel also look small, quaint, and "visually" unlike what most major top 25/top 50 metro areas look like.
I was hoping you'd mention my hometown or Fayetteville. I was born here, and have lived here most my life. I've been to a lot of places, and it's one of the best. It sure has grown a lot in my lifetime.
Born and raised in Midland, MI. Saginaw used to be twice the size and has buildings like a bigger place. Bay City was also a nice percentage higher than what it is now. Both have higher crime and poverty. Midland continues to grow because it is safer and has better schools. Also it is a highly rated area for businesses with a couple fortune five hundred companies.
I attend East Tennessee State University in Johnson City and gotta say that the area is absolutely amazing
I lived for about six years in one of the smaller tri-city metro areas of the country: Olympia, Lacey, Tumwater WA, centered around the state capital of Olympia.
Great video. Thanks!
As for the Quad Cities...
At one time, there were FOUR major farm implement companies
(Case, IH, DEERE,CAT). Out of those only Deere remains. There are also quite a few smaller towns nearby.
I had to work in Pasco last week, the best view of the WA Tri-cities is in the rear view mirror.
The image at 19:14 is a flooded Cedar Rapids, (Iowa's second largest city), and not of a flooded Davenport or anywhere else in the Quad Cities.
Exactly what I was about to say. This does NOT look like the QC lol
Northeast Ohio is another one with Cleveland, Akron, and Canton
Cleveland is the dominant city in that metro
Maybe Akron, Canton, Massillon. They like to think they are detached from the Cleveland metro.
I live in Oceanside, California. We have a tri-city with the cities of Vista and Carlsbad. There is a hospital called "Tri-City Hospital" in Oceanside and is within a few minutes of the other 2.
I thought this video was going to be state border cities for some reason and now I think you should totally do a video on that! Kansas City being a prime example but I would exclude places like Chicago where the Indiana portion is technically a part of it but they seem to have their own thing going on whereas NYC would be included because NJ is very integral to the city. Other example are Cincinnati, Portland OR, El Paso, KC, STL, Omaha, Philly. Places I would not include are Providence, Augusta GA, Chattanooga, Spokane
I was preparing to hear Tampa, Clearwater, and St. Petersburg. Guess I can’t get my hopes up.
I was born and raised in the piedmont Triad area of NC, but live in metro Dallas now. The triad is made up of three cities a hop skip and a jump from each other, but they are definitely separate cities that do their own thing. Especially Greensboro and Winston-Salem.
A news report in March stated that according to Census Bureau statistics, the Spartanburg metro area grew by 3 % , 10, 640 residents in 2022-2023, making it one of the fastest growing areas in the US. Several projects are underway in the downtown area including a new baseball stadium, the largest investment in the city’s history.
There’s also the Oklahoma City-Moore-Norman-Midwest City-Edmond one aswell with all having 50k+ population.
They will no longer run dirt races at Bristol
We're from the Akron-Canton Ohio area, which though we refer to it as one area, is divided into two separate MSAs when not included with Cleveland. In spite of that, it functions relatively as one region slightly separate of Cleveland with populations in order of Akron, Canton, Cuy Falls, and Massillon all having traditional downtowns.
Hampton roads resident here . Norfolk is our urban fabric but there are some new-comers to mixed use development. In chesapeake , dollar tree actually has started building a downtown development , in virginia beach we have town center which has been expanding to our old mall that is slated to have mixed used development. And in Newport news there's also city center oyester point!
Nice new intro!
Pure curiosity: are there any consistent differences between more "saturated" metros like the Quad Cities, where the "urban" landscape fills the space between the city centers, and metros like the Great Lakes Bay region, where there's solid rural farmland or forest between the city centers? I'm too lazy to look into it. :)
Awesome new graphic logo thing too!
Im from the quad cities, it makes it feel like 1 big city. Well 2 really cause we hate crossing the river here so its kind of Iowa side vs Illinois side.
ill drive 5 miles uptown rather than go a mile across the river to get the same thing lmao. Plus Illinois side is much more expensive on gas, smokes, alcohol, pretty much everything so theres not much reason to go over there lol.
@@FlawedOffroad I used to live near Iowa City, and I've been to the Quad Cities a few times. Definitely just stayed on the Iowa side unless I was heading to Chicago or beyond. I'm from the Upper Midwest, so the idea of paying to drive on boring freeways was always so offensive. At least Iowa has the decency not to charge you even more just to pass through.
@@jamesbungert3155 its mostly i-88 that has a toll, 74 and 80 don't. Well I think there is 1 toll on 80 in Chicago, cant recall if it was on the Indiana side. I just made that drive a few weeks ago. 88 is worth the tolls from here if you have to go anywhere on the north half of chicagoland
I would consider the California high desert cities of Victorville-Hesperia-Apple Valley to be tri-cities since they're all relatively the same size--give and take 100,000 each. My hometown of Barstow is too small & too far away to be part of that mix. However, when I was growing up in the 70s & 80s, Barstow was larger than any city in the Victor Valley
Fun fact. One of the nicknames for Hampton Roads is the seven cities, because there are 7 cities in the metro area. The area has an interesting history and alot of the city boundaries were shaped by segregation. In the 60s, there was this thing called "white flight" where many white people left the city because they didn't like the idea of integration in schools. They moved out into small towns in the suburbs and exurbs, and many of these towns took advantage of Virginia's weird independent city thing and annexed the surrounding county to call themselves a city, essentially landlocking the central city of Norfolk Virginia. Instead of placing their city hall in a Downtown area, Virginia Beach and Chesapeake have campuses at the edge of the suburbs. Because of things like this, there's alot of bickering and redundancy that goes on between the cities, and it holds the region back. Especially between Norfolk and Virginia Beach.
Why didn't you add Alabama's quad cities? Simply known as The Shoals.
I was born a geography nerd and I used to read the atlas on family road trips to pass the time. And I was completely convinced when I was 5 years old that Chesapeake, VA was the biggest city in the world, just because Rand McNally used such a large font & its city limits took up so much map space. Little did I know that a bunch of medium sized cities could just line up side by side like that. Totally blew my mind.
I'm also a lifelong geography nerd. Learning that a Mercator Projection map of the world was wildly inaccurate must have given you a similar shock. (Unless you had a globe, of course.)😄
I'm surprised the Lehigh Valley (Allentown/Bethlehem/Easton/Phillipsburg) metro area wasn't mentioned. It's the third largest metro in Pennsylvania, only behind Philadelphia and Pittsburgh. It used to be known as a big steel area, but currently, there's a lot of medical, education, warehouse/logistics, blue collar, tourism, and chemical industries there, plus it's just over an hour from NYC, Philadelphia, and Scranton, making it convenient for people wanting to go to any of those.
I went to college at SUNY Albany, it was quite nice up there in the late 80’s…nice to know it’s still the same
19:16 is Cedar Rapids not Davenport
Ugh that bothers me so much. It was a mislabeled stock photo. But I guess it highlights the flooding issues in eastern Iowa even more.
@@GeographyKing yeah true
There’s a spot I think that includes Pismo Beach in California called the five cities. Great area! Arroyo Grande is a hidden gem!
I was really impressed with Davenport, IA!
Bristol Motor Speedway is a 0.533 miles oval short track in Bristol, Tennessee. The track has held a variety of events since its opening in 1961, including NASCAR races, NCAA FBS college football games, and sprint car races. Wikipedia
Address: 151 Speedway Blvd, Bristol, TN 37620
Length: 0.533 miles (0.858 km)
Surface: Concrete
Banking: Turns: 24-28°, 5-9° Frontstretch, 4-8° Backstretch